


I Thought that I Could be Enough

by Queen_of_Pandas



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Eliza finds out about Laurens, F/M, Laurens-Hamilton letters, M/M, Past Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, hurt Eliza, literally just angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 22:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11656365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_of_Pandas/pseuds/Queen_of_Pandas
Summary: In which Eliza reads the letters her husband wrote to Laurens.“Angelica was right about you, but I was too naïve to believe her. I suppose I just truly believed that I was more than just a way for you to social climb, or that I could truly be enough.”





	I Thought that I Could be Enough

**Author's Note:**

> All the passages Eliza mentions from different letters are real.
> 
> Ham's letters to Eliza: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/collections/87df61d6-950a-4e51-8023-249519211427  
> Ham's letters to Laurens: http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/hamilton-laurens/hamilton-laurens-letters

“Betsey?” Hamilton asks when he walks into his office to see his wife sitting at his desk, her face shrouded by hair and the fire casting shadows against her body. 

“Alexander,” she responds, her voice stiff.

“Are you well?” he asks as he steps towards his desk. “You seem upset. What’s…” Hamilton trails off once he sees the box open on his desk and the paper clutched in her hand.

““Next fall completes my doom. I give up my liberty to Miss Schuyler. She is a good-hearted girl who I am sure will never play the termagant; though not a genius she has good sense enough to be agreeable, and though not a beauty, she has fine black eyes--is rather handsome and has every other requisite of the exterior to make a lover happy. And believe me, I am lover in earnest, though I do not speak of the perfections of my Mistress in the enthusiasm of Chivalry,” Eliza reads, her voice thick with sadness, yet still retaining a cold quality. “” My Mistress is a good girl, and already loves you because I have told her you are a clever fellow and my friend.”” She pauses and clenches the letter tightly.

His face becomes a pallid white as his wife reads. “Love, please, I can explain,” he begs in a quiet voice.

She ignores him. “Your mistress? Is that truly what you thought of me? Is it what you think of me still? Were all of your declarations of love a lie?” She looks up at him with hollow, red-rimmed eyes and a stony expression. “Were all of the times you wrote me saying sweet things such as how I engrossed your thoughts to the point where you couldn’t think of anything else- to where I haunted your every dream originally intended for your sweet Laurens?”

“Betsey, I’m so sorry. You were never meant to see those,” he apologizes. Gingerly, he places a hand on her shoulder, a hand she promptly jerks off. 

“Is that really meant to make me feel better, Alexander? Is the fact that you were going to continue pulling the wool over your mistress’s eyes supposed to comfort me?” Her tone is harsh and clipped, but her expression is rapidly becoming a sad one. 

“I love you,” he says weakly.

Eliza scoffs then stands up and braces her hands on the desk. “If you loved me you would’ve stopped your affair with him the minute you started courting me!” she bursts out suddenly in a voice saturated in both anger and agony. “And don’t you dare lie to me and say you did!” She turns around to point her finger at him and prod him in the chest, one of his many letters to John crushed in her fist. “You invited him to join us on our wedding night* for God’s sake!” Eliza’s pale cheeks are becoming flushed red with anger and she had begun to cry hot tears that she quickly wiped away with her sleeves.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he says, his voice cracking. “I truly, truly love you. I have since the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“But obviously not enough if how you speak of me in the wretched letters is enough to go by! You saw me as nothing more than a scapegoat…” Her voice starts out strong, but trails off into a weak, soft whimper. “Angelica was right about you, but I was too naïve to believe her. I suppose I just truly believed that I was more than just a way for you to social climb, or that I could truly be enough.” Her voice is now but a ghost, and she seems truly and thoroughly drained of any anger she’d previously had as she stares at the ground, her chest rattling with shaky breaths. 

Without looking up, Eliza presses one of the crumpled letters to Hamilton’s chest before turning and walking out of the room, not noticing Philip standing by the door frame, listening to his parents. 

What little resolve she has left crumbles as soon as she enters her bedchambers, and she sinks to the floor, sobs violently wracking her entire body.  
\---

Hamilton follows in suite, but his wife slams the door and locks it before he can enter. He stands helplessly outside of the door as his Betsey, his beautiful bride, one of his two greatest loves, cries and cries, his heart clenching as he realizes that he can’t fix this, that anything he says may just bring her more pain.

**Author's Note:**

> *I would invite you after the fall to Albany to be witness to the final consummation. (letter Hamilton wrote to Laurens in regards to his and Eliza's wedding night.)


End file.
